Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches (DLC) [Review]

The DLCs for Dishonored are all about focusing on the side stories that make the setting much richer and the characters more fleshed out. When The Knife of Dunwall DLC came out for Dishonored, players were able to be in the shoes of Daud, who was Corvo’s nemesis in the game. Now with The Brigmore Witches, you get to play the antagonist in the previous DLC. It would be interesting if the second time is also as good or perhaps even better.

The Brigmore Witches is the sequel to The Knife of Dunwall, directly following where Daud left off. Being able to play as the bad guy is quite a nice touch for a DLC as it takes a look at the story from another angle. In The Knife of Dunwall, Daud was being given a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the Outsider for having killed the Empress. In this DLC, more is uncovered with the story behind Delilah Copperspoon, the same individual whom the Outsider had ordered Daud to investigate in the previous DLC. As the title suggests, the existence of the Brigmore Witches is soon discovered as a group led by Deliliah.

Like Corvo and Daud, Delilah is also marked by the Outsider, so she is formidable in her own right. You get to taste this power as Delilah is fun to play with with her own abilities at your disposal. The choices you make here as Delilah does a lot in shaping how this part of the story will end. However, Corvo’s actions don’t affect anything here and vice versa. Everything is limited to within the DLC, which is understandable but still kind of disappointing.

There is still the excellent level design that makes the missions interesting to play through. In terms of how the missions are played though, there are no real differences at all made to the rest of the game. This was a good chance to introduce some special way of dealing with enemies, but at least players get to make use of Delilah’s abilities to negotiate each scenario. Like with The Knife of Dunwall, it’s a nice change over playing the main campaign as Corvo as you get to learn more about the world within Dishonored. While Daud was a rather straightforward character, there’s more flavor to Delilah’s characterization. It also helps that the witches can actually be rather creepy, making the name of the DLC more than just an empty description.

In terms of adding replay value to Dishonored, this DLC definitely succeeds in providing extra content, and it helps that it follows up on the previous DLC. Sadly though, this could be Dishonored’s last DLC, which is kind of sad as it has been quite a journey to follow Corvo, and then Daud. At least with this one though, perhaps they ended with a good bang, albeit a rather offbeat one at that. If ever Arkane and Bethesda continues to release DLCs, as the latter did with Skyrim, then that will really stamp this game as a memorable one.

Like with the previous one, this is a $10 purchase, but it should be well worth the price for Dishonored fans. For those who don’t have the game yet, but are interested in playing it, then perhaps it’s best to wait a bit until some bundle version comes out at a more affordable price comes up to get the game and the DLCs all at once.